babies & berries

In the spirit of strawberry season, my cousin Stephanie sent me the following two photos. They depict her and my cousin Jon’s incredibly cute children, Ella and Ryan, posing with a basket of fresh and local strawberries, handpicked in Montague, MI. I think we’d all gain from celebrating the season’s harvest with the kind of joy that Ella and Ryan are modeling for us, don’t you?

They are two of my favorite kids, too! : )
Strawberrries will always be one of my favorite “accessory fruits,” and the source of one of my favorite childhood memories. Every Sunday afternoon during the summer, my mother would make rich, buttery shortcake, cull strawberries, and beat up fresh whipping cream for our Sunday night supper, strawberry shortcake. We kids could have as much as we wanted, and when the evening was over, there wasn’t a crumb left!